Secondhand Smoke - Softcover

Friedmann, Patty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425198286 ISBN 13: 9780425198285

Publisher: Berkley Trade, 2004

Synopsis

Having driven her grown children far from home, cynical widow Jerusha scoffs at their choices in life and finds herself becoming unexpectedly attached to her ten-year-old next-door neighbor, the son of an equally dysfunctional mother. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

Patty Friedmann is the author of three previous novels, Odds, Eleanor Rushing, and The Exact Image of Mother.

From Publishers Weekly:

The chronic discontent and over-the-top dysfunction of a Southern working-class family are at the heart of this dark comedy. Wilson Bailey has a Ph.D. in organic evolution but he is helpless in the face of his wife's infidelity and his father's cancer. His estranged sister, Zib, is a nihilistic assistant manager at Winn-Dixie, where she is constantly rebuffing the advances of her sleazy boss. Their mother, Ru, is a chain-smoking racist prone to bouts of physical and verbal violence. Both siblings have forged independent lives away from their native New Orleans, but their father's death brings them back together for another round of domestic insanity. Friedmann (Eleanor Rushing; Odds) careens among the viewpoints of Ru, Wilson and Zib; their narratives and the story as a whole are as humorous as they are sad. Zib resents her brother's intelligence and has spent her life pretending to be stupid, compensating by having reckless one-night stands; Wilson was so traumatized by his mother's bullying that he can't even go to the bathroom without thinking of her; and the irrepressible Ru is so ferocious and misguided in her opinions that she's downright enthralling. When she accidentally burns down her house, she begins living on the streets, where she meets Murray, a black homeless woman who challenges her racist beliefs. Friedmann's characters occasionally seem like caricatures, and the different narrators create an erratic tone overall, but the outrageous developments and swift pace make this novel hard to resist.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley Trade
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0425198286
• ISBN 13: 9780425198285
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304